


late nights

by TechnicalTragedy



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Injury, Love Confessions, M/M, Sappy, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-20 16:14:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13721355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TechnicalTragedy/pseuds/TechnicalTragedy
Summary: The first time Percy knocks, Vax thinks about ignoring it.The second time Percy knocks, Vax can’t get the door open quick enough.





	1. don’t knock it

**Author's Note:**

> i’m still here lol. i thought i had percildan out of my system but that was a dumbass thing to think.
> 
> anyway while i get back into the swing of things, have some truly horrifically sappy fluff.

Vax’s first instinct when he hears the knock at his door is to ignore it. He waits, and when the second, more tentative knock comes, he heaves himself out of bed to answer it.

Percy stands only somewhat sheepishly on the other side of the thick wooden door.

“Did I wake you?” he asks.

Vax considers falling back on snarkiness, but figures that Percy wouldn’t come knocking at this ungodly hour if it weren’t important, and says, “No. I, well. I’m too tired to sleep, if that makes sense.”

Percy nods like he understands and, thinking on it, Vax figures he probably knows the exact feeling.

“We should talk,” Percy says.

“Want to come in?” Vax asks.

Percy’s eyes slide to the door of the room next door. “Ah. It’s a bit. Sensitive. I don’t really want anybody to, you know. Eavesdrop.”

“Oh. In that case.” Vax turns on his heel, tossing a heavy cloak around himself and stuffing his feet into a soft pair of boots, then rejoins Percy at the threshold. He closes the door as quietly as he can. “Shall we?”

They make their way down to Percy’s workshop, nodding to the rare guard who notices them on the journey.

Once the blast-proof door is between the two of them and the rest of the world, Percy loses some of his stiffness, leaning against a workbench and rubbing wearily at his eyes. Vax notices with amusement that he accidentally smudges some soot on his cheek.

“I’m sorry to have sought you out at such an indecent hour,” Percy begins, “but I was willing to bet that you, like me, were still awake. We have had, shall we say, a rough go of it recently. Everything seems to be going wrong, as it is wont to do. I can think of no obvious solution, and indeed that isn’t what I wanted to discuss. I, ah, had hoped to broach a more personal topic. It is, um, that is to say, you are a very dear friend to me, and we have had good times, the two of us. So, I had a question. Um. If you are uncertain of the answer-“

“Percival, get to the point.”

Percy nods, cheeks turning a curious shade in the unsure light of the torches. “Vax. You are, well, an exceedingly handsome man. I find myself compromised by you, oftentimes. My eyes find you at inopportune times; my thoughts wander to you whether you are near or far. The way you walk and talk, your hands around your daggers, the movement of your throat when you swallow.” Percy scratches at the back of his neck, definitely red by now. “It is maddening.”

Vax eyes Percy, intrigued. “All of this to say you’re infatuated with me?”

“Well, in such blunt terms, I-“

“Besotted, perhaps?” Vax teases. “Smitten?”

“Why, uh. Yes.” Percy swallows. He meets Vax’s eyes shyly. “I am a fool for you.”

Vax grins, steps closer. “Percival is a closet romantic. Who would have guessed?”

Percy straightens minutely, tracks Vax’s movements, so attuned to him that Vax finds it a wonder he hadn’t noticed before.

“I admit, Percival, I expected rose petals scattered across the bed, a pair of rings engraved with our names, something like that,” Vax says.

“Rose petals? You sound like a romance novel.”

Vax laughs, drawing within touching distance of Percy. “As if your earlier speech wasn’t straight from the pages of one.”

Percy smiles, a crooked, pleased thing. “I’ve had a lot of time to imagine what I would say.”

“Oh?” Vax says. “Practiced in the mirror, have you?”

“Every evening before bed.”

Vax slips a hand up to caress Percy’s cheek, feeling more than hearing the hitch in his breathing. The skin under his palm is warm, near-hot from the fading blush, and rough from a few days’ worth of stubble. Percy’s pupils are blown wide beneath his glasses, unwavering from Vax’s own gaze.

Carefully, Vax leans forward to press the gentlest of kisses to Percy’s lips.

Percy exhales against Vax’s mouth, eyes sparkling. “Never took you for chaste.”

Vax smiles. “Got to keep you on your toes, Freddie.”

“Kiss me again?”

And Vax graciously obliges.


	2. knock-knock

The knock comes, as always, late at night.

Vax opens the door without hesitation, his boots already on in anticipation of this nightly ritual. Percy grins at him, eyes darting over Vax’s features hungrily as if they hadn’t last seen each other only a few brief hours before.

They exchange a quick kiss, the silence of the halls making them bold.

Percy leads Vax down to the workshop, where their trysts take place by virtue of necessity. They haven’t yet had the courage to come out with their relationship to the rest of Vox Machina, though Vax regrets not being able to engage in the kind of easy affection he craves in the light of day.

Once sequestered in their own safe realm, Percy and Vax have the freedom to be whatever it is that they are to one another.

“I think Vex knows,” Vax tells Percy.

The two of them are curled together on the lumpy straw mattress Percy had stashed down here for when he worked himself to an exhaustion so complete he couldn’t make his way to his room, but now it’s mostly used for their late nights together. Percy’s fingers are in Vax’s hair, gentle as he works out the tangles that came about from a tough day tramping through the wilderness.

“Knows?” Percy asks.

Vax presses his thumb into Percy’s side. “About us.”

Percy hums in understanding, but says nothing as he continues to fix Vax’s hair.

“Are you not worried about that?” Vax says.

“Why would your sister knowing about us worry me?” Percy says. He frowns at Vax, his hands stilling. “I am not ashamed of what we are.”

Vax sighs. “It’s just, well. I love Vex, but I quite like having something all to myself. Having, not so much a secret, but one thing I don’t want to share.”

“I won’t be so easily shared, even with your twin sister,” Percy quips.

“Cheeky bastard,” Vax says with a soft smile. “Rest assured that there’s at least one way in which I will never share anything with Vex.”

Percy returns to detangling Vax’s hair. “If you don’t wish her to know, Vax, we are under no obligation to tell her.”

Vax rubs his fingers over the exposed strip of skin between Percy’s trousers and shirt hem. “And what if I wanted to stake a public claim on you, hm? Kiss you in front of the rest of our family so soundly that not a doubt existed in their minds that you were mine?”

“I would think it might be a tad overdramatic, but it certainly wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”

“And if I wanted you to remain my lover in the dark for the foreseeable future?”

Percy runs his fingers through Vax’s snag-free locks. “In whatever way you want me, you’ll have me.”

“Sap,” Vax accuses gently.

Percy leans in to kiss Vax.

“ _Sap_.” Vax says again, but smiles against Percy’s lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ughhhhh more fluff i can’t BELIEVE myself! all this time away from writing has made me softe.


	3. take your knocks

They’re in the workshop again. It seems they’re always in the workshop.

Percy’s shirt is a casualty of Vax’s worry, and he wouldn’t be wearing pants either if he hadn’t turned bright red as soon as Vax made a move toward the lacings. While Vax had found his modesty amusing, now his focus is entirely consumed by something new.

Namely, the results of Vox Machina’s most recent battle.

“You should have been more careful,” Vax says, not for the first time.

“Careful isn’t in the job description, dear,” Percy reminds him.

Vax gives him a sharp glare. “Make another snarky comment while I’m sewing you back together, Percival.”

So Percy sighs and relaxes, making sure to keep his winces short-lived, so as not to disturb Vax’s delicate work.

He hadn’t meant to get hurt. Who wishes for a sword to slash across their side? He’d done well hiding it, though, until Vax’s keen eyes took note of his stiff posture and dragged him away from the rest of the party to look him over. Percy had taken one look at Pike and known she was tapped, so he’d figured he would patch himself up later. As soon as Vax found the wound, though, he’d insisted on fixing it as best he could. And Percy, despite the token resistance he’d put up, was relieved to not have to fumble  
half-blind through another impromptu surgery on himself. He had enough improperly healed wounds for a lifetime already.

“It won’t be beautiful,” Vax says, “but it’ll heal.”

“How will I survive without my beauty?” Percy asks, throwing his head back for dramatic effect.

Vax swats amusedly at Percy’s thigh. “Please. As if you could be anything but beautiful.”

Percy’s cheeks warm, and he reaches out to trace a finger along the sharp line of Vax’s exposed ear. “Compared to you, I’m an ogre.”

“Handsomest ogre I’ve seen,” Vax says, grinning.

“Even if I were to, what is it that ogres do? Eat babies and kill cattle? Would I still be handsome if I did those things?”

Vax leans into the hand that has now slipped down to his cheek, pressing a kiss into the middle of Percy’s palm. “Especially if you did those things,” he says.

“I learn something new about you every day,” Percy says.

“And what do you make of those things?”

Percy makes a thoughtful noise, stroking a thumb over the high ridge of Vax’s cheekbone. “All I know is that I love you more and more every time I see you,” he finally says.

Vax’s eyes go soft as he gives a pleased, sweet smile. “I love you, too, Percival.” He shifts on his feet. “But my knees ache. Can I stand up now?”

They kiss once Vax is upright, taking as long as they want, unhurried and unconcerned with anything beyond each other.

Percy sighs once they’ve parted, his lips tingling pleasantly. “Sleep in my bed?” he asks.

Vax noses at Percy’s jaw. “I thought you’d never ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i went into this thinking there’d be smut in chapter two and here we are at the end of ch3 without any. it’ll be here, don’t worry, i guess i’m just taking my sweetass time.


	4. knock knock knockin’ on heaven’s door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The closest to divinity a mortal can get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter!! there wasn’t much of a plot to begin with, but i hope you’ve enjoyed this little journey we’ve all been on together while i figured myself out as an author again!
> 
> enjoy!!!

It’s different, this time.

Vax doesn’t knock on Percy’s door, but Percy opens it anyway, as if somehow aware that Vax’s silent footsteps had led him to the hallway just outside.

There’s a moment, here, where Vax and Percy stare each other down. Percy’s breath is short. Vax trembles minutely.

Something big is on the horizon, some indeterminable change preparing to sweep them all up and carry them forward into their fates. Percy and Vax stand on opposite sides of a threshold, both physical and not; they are two forces that mesh and fight and are constantly, completely engaged with one another.

Vax steps forward.

The door cuts the both of them off from everything else.

Heat, then. Their mouths pressing without finesse against one another, both seeking the same comfort the other’s touch brings. Percy’s icy core melts in the face of Vax’s supernova. His hands clutch uselessly at Vax’s hips, unwilling to move away, unable to do anything but cede to Vax and his crushing gravity.

“I want our clothes off yesterday,” Vax says against Percy’s lips.

They scramble to undress, distracted hands slowing the process considerably. Percy grows shy when he gets down to his underclothes, but Vax’s quick fingers make easy work of what Percy is too embarrassed to remove himself.

“Gods above, but you’re gorgeous,” Vax can’t help but say.

Percy turns a delectable shade of pink, reaching all the way down his chest. Before he has a chance to vocalize his own thoughts, Vax pushes him toward the bed.

Vax’s lips fasten around the head of Percy’s cock without pause, his tongue darting over the slit teasingly.

“Vax, you-“ Percy chokes, curling his fingers in the sheets.

“I what, dear heart?” Vax says, coy.

Percy exhales roughly. He cups Vax’s cheek in his hand. “Aren’t we going a bit fast? I imagined more seduction leading up to our first time.”

Vax shrugs. “I imagine we’ll have plenty of time for seduction later. I could get my hands on some rose petals and a good vintage, if you want. But right now?” He laves his tongue over the red tip of Percy’s very interested-seeming cock. “I would be very appreciative if you fucked me so hard I forgot my own name.”

“I think I may black out,” Percy breathes, but he’s already pulling Vax up from his knees, is already kissing the air from both their lungs.

After that, things move at double speed.

Percy has slick fingers buried in Vax, one then two then three, and Vax is moaning his name and asking for more, more, harder, right there. Then Percy is slicking himself up, is sliding in - the slow drag, the tight pressure all around him threatening to overwhelm, the tightly-coiled pleasure sending red hot bolts up his spine - is building up a rhythm, is sweating and panting and gradually hammering Vax harder and faster and bending him double, Vax’s fingernails are scraping down his back and they can’t kiss they can only breathe the same humid air and Vax says-

“Percival, Percy, Per-“

\- and their brains fry, they spiral up into the heavens clutching each other, Percy repeats Vax’s name until there’s no meaning to the word, until Vax is the meaning of life itself.

Vax kisses Percy back to himself, grinning soft and sweet in the wet, gross aftermath of what Percy thinks must be the closest to divinity he’ll ever get.

“Have you come back to me?” Vax asks.

Percy kisses back, sighing happily. “I’m right here.”

“Good, good. Could you clean us up a bit? I would, but I find I’m a bit sore.”

And once they’ve righted themselves, found their equilibrium again, they lay tangled together, two intersecting planes that refuse to be parted.

“Everything alright, Vax?” Percy says.

Vax smiles, kisses his darling Percival just because he can. “Never better, my love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love you all, and i hope to see you again soon <3

**Author's Note:**

> i’m [ @barikonen on tumblr now](http://barikonen.tumblr.com)


End file.
